When Chimps Go Bad

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Many people when they think of chimpanzees think of rather small cuddly creatures who wouldn't, and couldn't hurt a fly. This description of a chimpanzee is best compared with very young chimpanzees, but once they hit adulthood a chimpanzee has the upper chest strength of seven male human beings and standing by this belief in the angelic chimp can be fatal. Recently a woman was almost killed when a 200 pound, 14 year old, male chimpanzee named Travis tried to rip of the face of his owners friend. The owner tried to stop the attack by first pushing the chimp and then eventually had to resort to stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and hitting it over the head with a shovel. When the police came the chimp tried to open the police car doors to get in at the officers which at that point prompted the officers to fire on the chimp repeatedly which resulted in its death. The woman had to be rushed the hospital for extensive wounds to her face and hands, which the chimp basically ripped away from her body. Anyone who still thinks that chimpanzees are nice soft cuddly creatures is crazy. When the owner was asked about the accident she said it was completely unlike Travis, and that all he had was love until the accident, and that is was unforeseeable . However the president of the Human Society of the United States Wayne Pacelle completely disagrees.

"Their behavior, which is born into them, can come out even if you put the animal in a bed at night, even if you dress them up in a tutu. They are still wild animals...This is a perfectly predictable outcome of an inherently dangerous situation," -Wayne Pacelle

However this knowledge is nothing knew as this same kind of chimpanzee attack was enacted on man named St. James Davis, 62, 4 years ago in March 2005. Davis was visiting his former chimpanzee pet at an animal sanctuary in Havilah, California when two other male chimpanzees were accidentally let loose in the sanctuary and attacked him brutally mauling him and minor injuring his wife. The chimpanzees tore off Davis' nose from his face, tore of his foot, attacked his limbs and genitals. Today Davis has a fake eye, no upper jaw, and can no longer walk because of his mangled foot.

"I had no idea a chimpanzee was capable of doing that to a human," Kern County fire captain Curt Merrell, who was among the first on the scene, told the Los Angeles Times. "It looked like a grizzly-bear attack."

If you haven't gotten it by know chimpanzees are very, very dangerous animals, wild and ferocious. To think them not dangerous is a folly that to many people have come to realize to late. They may look cuddly and nice, but they are too unpredictable to ever be considered safe pets. Rules and regulations have been put in to help protect people as much as possible, but the remaining factor is people still think of chimps as little children. They are animals, and animals without a sense of responsibility or conscience and the strength of five men are dangerous.